MUNCIE, Ind. – The hunt is on for a Muncie man accused of battery on his wife and at least one of her three children. Muncie police say Anthony Whigum beat up his own wife and even went so far as to lock her children in a mice-infested basement overnight.

Muncie police say the abuse happened inside a home on N. Hackley St.

“We want to get him off the street,” said Muncie Police Detective Kyle Monroe, “obviously the children are safe now, the wife is safe now.”

According to court documents, Whigum beat his wife’s seven-year-old son using an electrical cord because he “wasn’t doing his exercises.”

“The seven-year-old seemed to be the one that really suffered,” said Monroe, “the five and four-year-old to a lesser extent.”

Court documents also say that child was eventually locked in a basement overnight by Whigum with no access to a bathroom and vermin running around.

“Sleeping in a basement, on the floor with rats and mice,” said Monroe, “I wouldn’t even put my cat down there.”

Police say they were called by Whigum’s wife Friday morning, after she was able to escape the home with her three kids while Whigum went to go sell his plasma. According to police, the wife also told investigators Whigum would choke her. She also said he carried around a taser, which he would hold in front of her children’s faces to threaten them.

“They came up here, they were hungry, they hadn’t ate in…he [the child] couldn’t tell me the last time they ate,” said Monroe.

Court records document severe injuries on at least one of those kids, who was covered in welts which had scabbed over, along with bruising. Police are hoping someone knows where Whigum is and turns him in.

If you know where Anthony Whigum is, you’re asked to call Muncie police or Crime Stoppers at 317-262-8477.